Echoes from the future
by Minuialeth
Summary: The Doctor's thoughts right after "Forest of the Dead". Obviously huge spoilers for "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".


**Disclaimer :**

I don't own Doctor Who or anything related to it.  
Cause if I had my say, David Tennant would be playing the Doctor for ever and ever. I do know he was the one to quit. He just didn't have the right, damn it *pouts*

This was betaed by dbskyler over at A Teaspoon and an Open Mind, a Doctor fanfiction archive.

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**E****CHOES FROM THE FUTURE**

The Doctor was tinkering with the TARDIS console.  
Or at least he had told Donna he had some fixing to do on some obscure circuit when, exhausted by the eventful day, she had gone to bed.

But right now it was more as if he were staring into empty space with his tools in a box beside him and his screwdriver loosely held in his slack fingers than as if he were fixing anything.

He was still slightly miffed at his TARDIS for not making him understand that he no longer had to use his key to open the doors. Especially when he started to recall the number of times he and his companions had made _very_ narrow escapes, fumbling to put the key in the lock, or worse, believing they could no longer enter the safety of the ship because the key had been lost in a fight or stolen.

After the few first seconds of sheer childish joy – which he hadn't shown to Donna, as if entering the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers was perfectly natural because Time Lords absolutely never _ever_ felt anything remotely childish – he had silently made his feelings of displeasure known to his ship.

The TARDIS had made him understand that this was a quite rare occurrence and that it showed a real deepness of bonding between a Time Lord and his TARDIS and that, to her knowledge, she was the very first TARDIS to ever allow such a method of boarding.  
He suspected very much that she had embroidered the facts a little to try and assuage him. The worst was that it had worked. She knew him too well.

She wasn't the only one…

It had taken all his willpower to leave the blue-covered diary in the Library, swarmed by the Vashta Nerada and forever out of reach, gathering dust, never to be opened and written in or pored over again.

The tips of his fingers had grazed the blue leather, wishing he could absorb the knowledge in the journal just by touching it, not breaking the rules. _His_ rules.

He even had had the very human – too human, he really ought to choose companions from other species from time to time – impulse to try and tempt Donna into opening the diary to find out her fate. He knew he had had the intention of peeking. That wasn't a Time Lordy – ugh, he'll never use that adjective again – behaviour and, to his shame, Donna had seen right through his poorly disguised scheme.

This little trip to the Library had begun like an ordinary adventure. A "wrong time at the wrong place," "oh, monsters everywhere," "duck and run for your lives," "why us?" adventure. The usual for him. He had been able to deal with the monsters.

Then _she_ had arrived, waltzing in as if she owned the place.

_Sweetie_. She had actually called him "sweetie." No one called the Oncoming Storm "sweetie." But she had, oh so naturally, oh so casually.

That stranger, that woman he had never seen in his very long life had talked to him in a disturbingly familiar way.

She had been the one to know what was going to happen in _his_ future, enumerating places and events he hadn't seen or lived yet, robbing him of his advantage as an all-knowing Time Lord and upsetting his usual equilibrium.

_"Your eyes. You're younger than I've ever seen you."  
_That sentence, the way she had looked at him as if he were a mere teenager, the number of times she had kept referring to his mightier, more intelligent and wiser future self had irritated him to no end. He was used to being the old and powerful Time Lord, the last in the whole universe, thank you very much.

Even more unsettling had been her comprehension of him. She had known what he was feeling, what he was thinking the whole time. He had felt exposed, he who preferred closing himself off from his companions, even from those he liked the most. _Especially_ from those he liked the most.

So at first he had acted the way he knew best, thinking she was an enemy, a nemesis intent on throwing him off or breaking his concentration and getting all of them killed.  
It was not only logical, it was the only explanation: an enemy from his future who had found her way into their past where he wouldn't be wary of her because he didn't even know who she was.  
After all, she had his screwdriver. He never gave his screwdriver to anyone, ever. He was sure she must have plucked it from his cold, dead hands.

But then, when he was about to get her to reveal who she was, by force if necessary, to end her scheme, she had…never in his life…

This woman he didn't even know – didn't know _yet_ – had murmured his name. His _name_.

He had been frightened before in his 900 years of existence, paralysed by fear, overwhelmed by terror, but never so much as when the archaeologist had leaned in and whispered that single word in his ear.  
All the well-oiled gears in his mind had come to a single stop, disconnecting him from the universe, from Time itself. That was precisely why he never told his name to anyone.

He realised now why she had profusely apologised before using her ultimate means of making him trust her: she had known how much it was going to upset him. She had known him that well. She had been aware of the power she had over him. And apparently he had given her that power on his own accord, willingly. Was he going to be so different from himself as he grew older?

After that moment, he had seen her in a very different light, this woman who knew his name and had his precious screwdriver.

He had noticed the real pain and hurt in her eyes because he didn't look at her the way he should have, the way she was used to, because he didn't know her. He had been right there at her side but she had missed him all the same.  
She had been brave and daring and intelligent and beautiful. She had sacrificed herself.

A pain he had come to associate with the absence of Rose briefly flared between his two hearts. His hand also hurt and he became aware of the tight grip of his fingers around his screwdriver. It was almost at breaking point.

He didn't understand his future self at all and it was highly disturbing to feel like a stranger to himself.

He must be going to change quite a lot and over many long years. That was the only explanation he had for allowing himself to get as close as he could ever be to someone he knew for sure he was going to lose. He was going to let himself become wide open for deep suffering instead of protecting himself from grief and distress like he usually did. As selfish and cowardly as that was, it had protected him from madness so far.

_River Song_.  
He let the name roll over in his mind, as if somehow his Time Lord brain could remember it, like an echo from times to come.

Maybe he would understand next time. Next time he met her, whenever and wherever that would be.


End file.
